Duke University Fund-Raiser Tops $2B

Published 12:57 pm, Monday, April 25, 2016

Duke University has become the fifth American university to raise more than $2 billion in a single fund-raising campaign.

The university announced the accomplishment Thursday, saying the Campaign for Duke, started in 1996, reached $2,006,684,498 on Jan. 11 _ a year before the fund drive's Dec. 31 close.

The school said it would continue the campaign.

"We still have ground to cover and less than a year to cover it," said Ginny Nicholas of Boston, who co-chairs the campaign with her husband Pete. "We always understood that even $2 billion was not sufficient to meet all of Duke's needs."

The money and pledges, from 225,000 donors, will be used for scholarships, faculty support including research, new buildings and other projects.

The four other schools to have reached the $2 billion mark, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, are Columbia and Harvard universities, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.